Heywood Lions on the prowl

Adam McNicol

Looking good: Heywood went close to folding last year, but now things are lining up well. Photo: A Tate

BY THE middle of last season, Heywood Football Netball Club president Michael Bell feared his beloved Lions were on the brink.

The facts were stark: Heywood's senior team appeared certain to record its third winless campaign in four years, and the club had so few players that it was unable to field a reserves side.

''There were a couple of Tuesdays there when we thought we weren't going to be able to scrape together a senior team to have a game on the weekend,'' Bell recalled while watching training on Thursday night. ''A few times we were thinking, 'Are we still going to be around next week?' That's how much of a short-term proposition it was.''

Bell and his committee were convinced that only one thing could save the Lions: a move to the lower-standard South West District Football Netball League, which was made up of small clubs located between Portland and Hamilton. Heywood's passionate members, who had rejected an approach from the SWDFNL in 2007, were polled on the matter last July. This time they overwhelmingly voted in favour.

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Heywood's initial application to move was blocked by the Western Border league because it wanted to maintain a 10-team competition. The matter was then referred to the Victorian Country Football League, and bush footy's governing body approved Heywood's entry into the South West District league in early October.

Six months on from the VCFL's decision, the change from a major to a minor league has triggered the response that Bell hoped for. Heywood now has almost 50 registered players, including star signings James Imbi, John Bell and Jason Saunders who have come across from nearby Portland. More importantly, the negativity that shrouded the club has been replaced by optimism. ''I'm looking across the ground right now and there's 45 to 50 blokes out there training,'' Bell said. ''That might not sound like many, but to me it's unbelievable. This time last year we probably had 10 on the track.''

When the Lions make their South West District league debut today, in a local derby against Tyrendarra (the two clubs are only 18 kilometres apart) at home, the Heywood supporters will be hoping the dark days are over at last.

''There's a lot of certainty about the club now,'' Bell said. ''We're looking to the future. We're trying to ensure our football club has got a long-term future so that Heywood people can play footy for Heywood.

''And it's just a great start to the year to play a club like Tyrendarra. Both clubs have had a close connection for a long time, both wear green and gold, and they were very supportive of us coming into the league.''

Heywood's change of competitions brought to an end the club's almost 50-year battle to be competitive in the Western Border league. The Lions were a founding member of the league in 1964, and their senior team lost the grand final to East Gambier in 1965. But to say the club was spectacularly unsuccessful during the rest of its time in the WBFL would actually be downplaying things.

Despite the promise shown in '65, Heywood's senior side made the finals only three more times: 1972, 1996 and '97. In fact, the last Western Border league grand final the Lions made, in any grade of football, was the reserves decider in 1970. The netballers did little better, winning just one A-Grade premiership.

Heywood's last push up the WBFL ladder came in 2010 when it recruited a number of Melbourne-based ex-AFL players, including three-time Brisbane Lions premiership player Mal Michael and former Essendon forward Courtney Johns. The Lions went as far as paying for their high-priced stars to fly to the south-west for matches.

Michael and his men helped Heywood draw some huge crowds, and the Lions even posted their first victory over local rival Portland since 1997. The win over the Tigers had Heywood sitting pretty in the top five, but the revival fell apart when relations between the club, its big-name recruits and its coach, Brad Sinclair, broke down towards the end of the 2010 season. The Lions missed the finals, then suffered a mass exodus of players.

Jason Akermanis tried to help out by playing a one-off game for the club last May. The 2001 Brownlow medallist drew a crowd of around 2000 and kicked three goals. He even helped the Lions post a score of 11.8 (74), which proved to be their highest of the year. But they still lost to lowly Millicent by 26 points.

The ladder at the end of last year's Western Border league season showed that Heywood had scored only 709 points (an average of 39 per game), while it had conceded 2975 (an average of 165 points, or 27 goals, per game). Those numbers alone made the club's application to join the South West District league a formality.

Heywood is now hoping to repeat the success of Coleraine, which has won six senior premierships since transferring from the WBFL to the South West District league for the 1995 season.

''They'll just slot in like one of the crew because they're bang in the middle of our league,'' says SWDFNL administration manager Chrissy Hawker. ''I think they will field both their teams without a problem. It's pretty exciting actually, considering how much they struggled last year.''

Heywood's move might be the first of many, as the VCFL recently began a review into the state of football in the region.

A break-up of the Western Border league, with the South Australian and Victorian clubs going their separate ways, appears one likely outcome; the establishment of a central administration hub in Warrnambool is another.

But for now the region's football and netball followers are getting on with the season in front of them. And today's first derby between Heywood and Tyrendarra, which is tipped to draw a crowd of up to 2000, has certainly created the type of buzz that grassroots sport thrives on.

''A couple of our better players were originally from Heywood, so we do expect a bit of banter on the day,'' Tyrendarra president Graham O'Connell said on Wednesday.

''There's a lot of interest around, and that's why the league made it a Sunday game. It's not just us, all the clubs in our league have been uplifted by the chance to have a new rivalry. But none of us want to be pushed around by an ex-Western Border side.''